Nearly every other shop in Britain might be struggling to pay its way, but Sports Direct is flogging enough £1.49 tracksuit bottoms and 29p Wayne Rooney masks to send sales up 18% to £403 million in the nine weeks to October.

The chain, which runs almost 500 shops including Lillywhites at the foot of Eros in Piccadilly Circus, thanked the Olympics for some of the boost. Sports Direct started piling up cut-price Team GB hoodies long before Mo Farrah won his second gold medal, and said that helped gross profits in the period to rise 21.7% to £167.4 million.

Sports Direct also owns brands including Slazenger, Lonsdale and Dunlop, and has snapped up faltering rivals. Earlier this month the chain, controlled by billionaire Newcastle United soccer club owner Mike Ashley, bought 20 stores and nearly all of the stock of rival JJB Sports after it fell into administration.

Today Sports Direct said trading since September had remained strong, leaving the board confident of hitting the target of its full year “super- stretch” bonus scheme, underlying earnings of £270 million.

Yet that scheme — which could have handed Ashley a £26 million bonus — was scrapped last month due to massive shareholder dissent.